Lille, France

Jessa and I wanted to go somewhere neither of us had been so we looked online for short trips to take from Amsterdam and ended up with Lille, France. It’s about a 4 hour train ride from Amsterdam. It was such a cute city!

Day 1

We took the train from Amsterdam on a Friday afternoon and arrived in the early afternoon. We checked into our airbnb in the “old” city center which was in such a cute area.

Then we wandered around to see the city and had a drink in a busy little square.

Monsier Jacques

We didn’t have a dinner reservation so we wandered until we found a place to have some wine and cheese. We were proud of ourselves for knowing the French word for cheese :) A very kind woman at the bar helped translate for us, and there was at least one waiter who spoke English as well.

Beer Square

After our cheese we were not super hungry (heat really makes me not want to eat much) but I was afraid I would get hungry again later. We headed for a little craft beer bar to have a drink and I got a little waffle with hummus, cherry tomatoes and arugula.

Day 2

Tamper Espresso Bar

On Saturday we started our day at Tamper Espresso Bar. We got iced coffees and I got an egg in hole with bacon and avocado. It was really tasty and a good start to the day.

After that we wandered around and looked in a lot of the shops around the city - there were SO MANY cute clothing stores! All the people in the stores were also really nice. I bought myself a pretty blue dress.

Pâtisserie Méert

We stumbled across this patisserie that I had read about and decided to take a little air conditioning break to get a dessert. I ordered a little vanilla tartlet and it was so delicious!! Jessa had a tartlet with berries which was also amazing.

We spent some more time wandering the city and went to have a little picnic in a nearby park.

For dinner the place we had wanted to make a reservation was closed for vacation so we wandered again until we found somewhere open. The most famous food in Lille is meant for cold times so it all sounded so heavy for a 90 degree humid evening and we ended up getting a cheese platter again.

I don’t know the name of the restaurant, but the cheese platter was very elaborate and not at all what we expected. There was even a baked potato! It was delicious.

We also got a waffle to share with chocolate and vanilla sauce and whipped cream.

Day 3

Paddo Cafe

Sunday morning we got brunch at Paddo cafe. They had great coffee and a really good brunch. I got eggs, toast, mushroom and halloumi. We sat outside and had a really nice time!

Our bus wasn’t until the afternoon so we wandered around the city a bit but it was so hot and most things are closed on Sunday so there wasn’t much to do.

We took an easy bus ride back to Amsterdam afterward to finish the weekend. It was a great little weekend city, very cute and relaxing! I would love to go back to go shopping.